I have been dreaming about getting a console for ages. Since PS. Remember those ones :P which probably had 1/100th of graphics of todays PS3 . And then came Xbox and PS2 and Xbox 360 and PS3. Nintendo jumped in the war as well and we got Wii. Then there were DS and PSP etc. I guess you got the drift

My question is, how much do people really play after getting these consoles ? I mean I played a lot of computer games, but that was when I was 18. A decade later and I remember playing my PSP more than a year back, that too for just 15 - 20 odd minutes.

Now I have finally settled down and am wondering to get a console and some games. A good place to start was doing some research in EF. And to my surprise, there are few people selling their consoles after using it not more than a couple times, one of them mentioned he/she played it once for 20 minutes and that was it.

Now I understand those who cannot get around using controls for the first time and some of those chose to give up and sell it. But most of those who get a console are at least amateur gamers. So they do understand how to go about using the controls.

Is it just 'No Time' because I have a kid or 'I have a stressful job' or 'It is too much wiring and connection cables (in case its not permanently hooked up) or something else.

I am just trying to understand so that my future (now probably 2nd hand console) wont be sitting and eating dust like my PSP. Perhaps I would then just invest in something else

What are your thoughts ???

Yes. There's even threads about it on here...

Classic:

It goes in phases for me. I'll play my PS3 for days on end (though not continuously), or not play it for weeks, depending on my motivation, fatigue levels, and whether I've hit a particularly tricky bit in a game. I also play a couple of PC games on and off, both online.

Personally, I avoid consoles at all costs. For starters because my parents would never allow me to have them when younger, 2nd because I spend far to much time playing THPS2 a decade ago, but mostly because of their lack of hardware ability and ruining gaming as developers program low end for the 'sellable' console market, when some pretty amazing things could be coming our for the PC.

I doubt PC would have graphics as good as consoles. I guess its due for a PS4 or Xbox 720 :P. But no news, not even gossips of those to come any time soon.

I guess PS Move and Xbox Kinect were the half sucessors in my eyes. Did they really change the gaming experience. I guess we should see FPS shooting games in MOVE and KINECT on a broader version than what we see now. It might be fun to actually load a gun by specific actions. If they ponder in to ideas they have shown in the movie 'Gamer' without actual humans ofcourse. It could a lot of fun

??? are you sure about this?

Almost all the time, graphics for PC far surpass those for console, this trend is however slowing as developers program for the aging console hardware which is severely inferior in almost all respects.

Whatever console you buy you will play with it.....for about a month. Then it wil just gather dust. Been there done that

That's my best guess as well

Nope I am not. I just have seen how the games look when I have played it at a friends place or at gaming conventions and it looked cool. Probably, coz it was hooked to a 72 inch LCD screen .

I never had an expensive pc for gaming. However, have played Crysis and GTA San Andreas on my last laptop and it was a Bomb !!!. I also think I am one of the guys who will love to play on a PC rather than a console.

I think this is the big difference between PC and console gaming. When you buy a game for your console, you know it'll work and you won't have to upgrade your hardware to the latest card in order to enjoy the top notch graphics advertised.

Also, over time, developers learn the system they develop for, and learn to use the hardware to it's fullest, so the graphics still improve over time with a console.

Very true, and this is one thing I do like about consoles....it's ready to go right away. I am also constantly impressed at the skill the software engineers are getting more performance out of the console hardware, this is obviously a bonus for gaming on the whole

That being said, I do find quite a bit of joy buying, building and tweaking my gaming rig...and I still remember when I first got my first huge GTX gpu, plugged it in (all the plugs) and watched maxed-out crysis blow my mind. That feeling, you just can't get from a console IMO.

I play on my XBox 360 regularly enough. I also have the option to play online with some old mates from work which we do occasionally (we're a group of 5 guys 25-35 yrs). And also my son and his mates can use it from time to time.

If you like playing against other real life people, there will always be a huge online community that you can match up against for the bigger titles out there.

Nothing beats a lazy call of duty day, get the munch in, the smoke out, and sit back on the lazy boy.

Providing of course it is not:

• Mow lawn day
• Collect post day
• Wash day
• Pay bills day
• Shopping day
• Pick up dry cleaning day
• etc

I've always been a gamer, but these days not so much - maybe a bit on the iPhone/iPad and the occasional bit of CoD on the Mac.

But I've seen it all really. I come from a time when shooting pixelated beasties moving slowly from left to right, then down a bit, and then from right to left was state of the art, and it cost 10 pence for 3 lives.

I've been wowed by many console systems:-

The Atari VCS, wow, pixelated beasties at home.
C64 (ok, not really a console) Revs (originally on the BBC micro, but I couldn't afford one) - my god I feel like I'm driving, at 5 fps
Sega megadrive - Virtua Racing blew my mind, I could sit and watch the attract mode for hours.
Playstation 1 - Gran Turismo, bloody hell, how real is this? And Wip3out - the first game I ever encountered that made you feel like the craft was an extension of yourself
Then there was the Playstation 2 - OMFG just look at the graphics - hang on a minute, I've played this game before, and this one, and this one, etc, etc.

I then realised that the games themselves were not actually changing as had happened with every generation before, just that the eye candy was getting better, and the games were getting longer.

Personally I no longer have the time to invest in gaming other than the occasional few minutes, and then I feel a bit guilty that I'm not being productive with my time, in that I feel that I should be doing something that gives a tangible end result.

Maybe I just got older

Speaking of the one of the initial heydays of console games. Here's a sad development:



PS: It was the Mayans.

In relation to the original question - I've also been a gamer for the majority of my life starting off at the beginning of the 80s with the Vic20 and Sinclair machines.

I've most of the current consoles and like others mentioned here I also go through phases where i can be playing all day or i go for a month and do not touch my main consoles.

Life is changing, with family etc so I notice my gaming changing - getting time on the Xbox / PS3 is limited so I end up spending more time playing on the 3DS or PS Vita (i play most days for an hour on the train), playing on the PC has gone right out of the window since my daughter was born - if i get time to sit down and play I want to stick in a disk / fire up a download and know it is going to work every single time.


Chemmie - magazines closing is not really a reflection on the state of the games market more a realistic change in light of the majority of gamers getting information online. The lead times of traditional print magazines are simply not workable for delivering information in the modern era on a field that is seeing changes by the day or even hour.